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Nick’s not entirely sure how many people you’re supposed to bring to see a three-year old’s holiday dance recital, but judging by the families seated around him, he’s definitely brought too many.
He’d brought it up casually at Sunday dinner a few weeks ago while Emma ignored her food in favor of doing somersaults across the living room, never one to miss an opportunity to perform for an audience larger than just Nick and Harry (although she never misses an opportunity to perform for just Nick and Harry either). Daisy quite literally squealed and made Emma take her to her room to show her the costume – and when she returned, doing turns with a giggling Emma in her arms, she looked at Nick and said, “Get me a ticket to the recital.”
Nick didn’t mention if after that, but Daisy must have because for the past week he’s been getting texts from what seems like everyone he’s ever known asking if they can come along. His favorite, though, was a call from Collette asking when he and Harry were going to let her teach Emma how to play netball (“I’ll come and watch the recital and tell you if she’s ready, alright Grim?”).
So, here they all are sat in a small gymnasium on folding chairs arranged in a circle around a blue mat. Their group is already attracting some glances from the rest of the audience because instead of grandparents – who have been promised a private, solo performance by Emma when they’re up near Manchester for Christmas next week – Nick’s just brought two full rows of sort-of celebrities.
Matt, Fiona, and Collette had arrived first – before Nick and Harry even – and staked out seats near the front. Daisy, Pix, and Emily are next, each holding bouquets of flowers wrapped in pink paper, which, Nick notes happily, are definitely smaller than the one tucked under his chair. Then Aimee and Ian show up, two toddlers of their own in tow. Soon after, Lou, Sam, and Caroline arrive with Lux, who Nick is always surprised to see is not a toddler herself anymore. And finally Niall – who still never misses a chance to support a member of One Direction or any of their progeny – enters the room, causing a silence to fall over the room and be replaced by a rush of urgent whispers.
The entourage is already causing a commotion and Harry hasn’t even arrived yet. They’d been together all afternoon, as getting a toddler ready for a recital is definitely a two-man job. Harry usually does the actual preparation, while Nick works on distraction and restraint. Today, he sat on the floor in front of Emma and listened to her pretend to read a book to him, so she would sit still long enough for Harry to brush her hair into a bun (he’s not sure if he should be concerned that the story she made up only vaguely corresponded to the illustrations or that every character in her story fell out of a tree at least once, but he'd been laughing too hard to properly worry about it). And then Nick held her up while Harry put her tights on – they didn’t tear the tights and Harry didn’t get kicked in the face, making it their most successful run to date.
But as soon as they got to the gym, they realized that Emma was wearing the wrong shoes. Nick had offered to go back and get them, but Harry had insisted that Nick should be there in case Emma got nervous. When Emma gets upset, Harry sometimes gets a little weepy himself – which is the most precious thing Nick has ever seen, but is not always very effective for consoling a child. So Nick stays, in case he has to go into distracting dad mode.
But Emma is fine, chattering happily to her classmates in the hall. And soon enough, Harry is pushing his way into the row, stopping to hug everyone who came – all the people who had a personal hand in Nick and Harry finally getting together and finally adopting a child, all here to watch her.
When he gets to his seat next to Nick, he hands Nick a program and excitedly points to the top, “Nick, look, the show is called ‘Ten Tots A-Leaping,’ you know like in the song about the twelve days of Christmas.”
Nick smiles, not so much because the name is cute but because it’s cute how cute Harry thinks it is. “Is she wearing the right shoes now?”
“Yeah, they were in Stinky’s bed for some reason,” Harry says, shrugging (Nick swears that he did not help Emma pick out the name of her new dog, they just have remarkably similar taste in dog names is all).
Soon the lights dim and the audience claps while the kids march out onto the mat. Some of the kids look nervous, but Emma is at the front of the line waving wildly at the audience. When her eyes settle on her entourage, Nick and Harry at the center of it, she starts blowing kisses.
Nick waves back with one hand and grabs onto Harry with the other because he’s not sure his heart has ever felt this full. Emma isn’t just their child, she’s really their child, out there stealing the spotlight. She couldn’t be anymore like Nick, who used to stand in front of the telly on game day to hijack the audience for his own performances, or Harry, who’s been blowing kisses at strangers since before he could walk.
“Our little human.”